


The Mechanic

by FBIEpidemic



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spiderman - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Harley Keener - Freeform, Hurt Tony Stark, Other, Peter Parker - Freeform, Tony Stark Adopts A lot of kids, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 05:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FBIEpidemic/pseuds/FBIEpidemic
Summary: Harley is a part of Tony's story too, not just Peter





	The Mechanic

**Author's Note:**

> I see Peter and Tony getting stories all the time so I figured why the hell not give one to Harley too?

Tony thinks he may understand why it is that mothers always seem to cry when they drop their children off on the first day of school. He's known these boys hardly anytime and yet his hands tremble with fear for what could befall them. 

Peter thinks that Tony put the stars in the sky. That he hung the moon and willed them all to shine. He’s the father that Peter keeps losing. There’s nothing that Tony could do to make Peter think that Tony is bad. That Tony is as damaged as they both know he is because Peter trust too much and he’s always so loyal.

Harley is always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s too nice. Everything seems too good and Tony tries hard to make it so that Harley feels more secure but that’s hard when everything changes so quickly for them. Nothing ever last that long.

“You look like shit,” Harley hides his fear of the unpredictable in cruel taunts thrown here and there. Rarely does he direct his taunts at Peter, Harley seems to hold that sort of acting as if it was something off limits, however, Tony is never off limits. 

Tony knows it’s because Harley fears that he’ll leave, just like Harley’s real father, and if Harley is cruel and taunts and just acts like he doesn't care than it should hurt less. Tony aims to never let Harley find out the answer to that. 

Tony hides a wince as he stands, stretching sore muscles and pulling at ribs that still aren’t healed. “Thanks, buddy. How’d you sleep?”

Harley avoids touching Tony as they stand beside one another, one starting a fresh pot of coffee and the other starting their first cup. It’s nothing the other isn’t used to but there is still a sense of unease at Harley’s trust issues. “You were out.” 

It’s as far as an answer as Harley goes into but Tony already knew the answer, mostly. 

When he returned from the mission, some Hammer tech malfunction that meant the Avengers were kicking Hammer robot’s ass’ at one in the morning, he found Peter curled up on the couch. It was obvious that Peter was not the only habitant of the couch before Tony found him but Harley never demonstrations care so he was expecting no less.

Peter was happy to see him, though. 

“Morn’g.” Peter brushes past them, moving for orange juice instead of the coffee that Harley and Tony both seem to have running in their veins. 

Unlike Tony and Harley’s usual greeting system, Peter greets Tony with a forehead to the chest. Tony smiles and puts a hand on his shoulder, pulling Peter closer. “Morning, kiddo.”

Harley looks away. He doesn’t hate Peter, anything of the sort. The kid and him, they’re like brothers. They’re family. He just wishes that he could be like Peter, at least in the way that Tony and Peter act with one another. He wishes he could seek comfort, hug Tony, cry on the couch, get sick and not feel guilty but there’s no one to blame that on but himself.

“Harley figured out the funk with the computer,” Peter tells Tony, looking up all proud at their shared mentor for the benefit of Harley. 

He’s seventeen, his ego has seen better years but he doesn’t need Peter’s constant support. Let alone Tony’s. “It wasn’t that hard. You just weren’t looking in the right spot, any one of us could have found it. I was just messing around anyway, found it by accident.”

Tony still reaches around to pat him on the shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, Potato! You found the error, it was good work.”

Harley has tried to hate Tony’s nicknames. They’re off the wall and almost all of his has something to do with a potato because of that stupid gun. He can’t, though, it’s the only thing that keeps him and Tony close and… well, he likes it.

He doesn’t get a chance to say anything back. The Avengers always have great timing like that.

“Sir, Captain Rogers wishes for me to inform you that the disabled Hammer robots were not as disabled as previously believed. Doctor Banner and Mr. Barton require your assistance.” 

Tony smiles at them, an apology somewhere between his pale lips. 

He’s gone.

“Did you do the Calc. homework, yet?” Peter is snooping through his room, flipping his notebooks open in an attempt to find the calculus homework their teacher gave out Tuesday. 

Just as he’s found it, Harley swats at his hand, Peter’s already got it though. He smiles at Harley in an annoying way but Harley just blows air out of his nose and turns back to his laptop.

“Are you stalking that girl from your Chemistry class again?” Peter bullies his way into seeing Harley’s screen, practically wrenching the laptop from Harley’s hands. 

Peter is older, not by much, but not that much bigger but in cases of wrestling the whole Spiderman alter ego gives him an unfair advantage and freakishly strong arms. 

“You’re…” they have this rule. One of those unspoken things that they just don’t do and one of them includes watching the Avenger battles. They just don’t do it. Peter’s never seen the New York battle and Harley knows that’s for the best because he’s seen it. 

It was a year ago, when he first moved into the tour, and he threw-up. Tony went up and even though the man was laying in his bed, only three or so doors down, Harley was sure he wasn’t going to come back down. Then his body came out, limp, and Harley was sure he was going to watch his mentor land, like a pancake, on New York’s streets. 

“Stop!” Harley pulls the computer back, shielding the screen with his chest. He can feel his cheeks heating up, Peter’s going to tell Tony. If Peter tells Tony than tony will wonder what else he’s seen and if that happens then they’re going to have to talk about so much and the last thing Harley wants to do it trigger another panic attack. He hadn’t done that in years. 

“You can’t tell him, Peter,” Harley says, his face hard and his body shaking with fear. “You know what will happen. Do you really want to freak him out? Huh? Think about it, he’ll lose his shit.”

It’s true. 

Last month when Peter got stabbed stopping a mugging, as Spiderman, Tony had broken down. There was panic attacks, a hospitalization. It was rough and then Tony got put back on his heart pills. 

Peter nods, he’s always been the more emotional one. It’s why he’s closer to Tony. “Okay. One condition.”

Harley rolls his eyes, mad because he got caught and mad because before Peter jerked the laptop away Tony was going hand-to-hand with a Hammer robot, and things didn’t look like they were going well. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Why?” For once, Peter looks and seems to be acting like he’s the older of the two of them. He’s not being run by his emotions or behaving like a child. “Why do you watch?” Peter looks him up and down,” and the truth, Har. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

Harley looks away from Peter, but not at the laptop either. He finds himself looking at the plush carpet Tony had put down his first week here, after finding out that Harley really liked the carpet in Tony’s room. He knows what the answer is, it’s just hard to say.

“You know him, Pete.” Harley tries, his right hand motioning outwards. An extra movement, Peter notes, and they both know it’s because Harley doesn't want to tell the truth. “He’ll come home, tell us he’s fine. I just…”

“You check up on him.” Peter finishes, nodding. Harley really is like a younger brother to Peter. They’ve got to look out for one another because their mentor is a superhero with a bad heart. 

“Someone has to,” Harley mumbles, digging his socks into the carpet. It disrupts the way the carpet is meant to go, making the fabric stick up in a way that would surely drive Tony crazy if he saw. Harley likes to leave patterns in the carpet, just drag his toe to make a line. Tony will come in, some Tuesday morning or Thursday night looking for a tool Harley didn’t put away and compulsively fix the carpet. 

Peter puts a hand on Harley’s shoulder, smiling, and gives it a squeeze. “It’s okay. I have a tracker in his suit. It’s in the ass of all of his suits… for his heart.”

Harley shakes his head,” you put a heart monitor on his ass?”

Peter frowns,” well when you put it like that…” A sudden vibration causes them both to look at Peter’s watch. It’s a watch, sure, but it’s also what Tony uses to communicate with Peter while he’s out on patrol. It’s also an emergency suit. 

It’s one of those gadgets Tony thought up after one of his horrifying accidents. 

“It’s a message from Cap, Tony’s in the MedBay, they’re waiting for us.” Peter looks down at his watch in confusion but Harley sees a spark of fear. “The Iron Man suit is not in the MedBay.”

Harley can remember the panic attacks Tony had. The way he lost his shit when Harley told him that the suit wasn’t charging. Better than that, he can remember EJ and when Tony took the reactor out. 

Tony is the suit, sure. They have to be one but Tony is more than the suit and the suit is nothing without him. But Tony isn’t just the suit, or the arc reactor, his shitty heart, or even his on again off again PTSD.

Tony is the guy who took the arc reactor out of his chest to save a bully, to save a kid. Harley was the one who had to pry it from Tony’s dying fingers and put it back in. 

That panic, that fear, that’s what Harley feels now.

“There were these kids,” Cap tries to explain. Harley never realized how young the guy was, he never tried to either. “Clint was down, Tony just went in. None of us could have done anything to stop him.”

Harley belives him. There’s a small bit of belief riding just on the fact that Captian America said so and the other half knowing damn well that Tony doing something stupid for a group of kids sounds right. To be fair, what exactly would you call Peter and Harley’s current situation?

It scares him though. Tony’s down, again. Bruised, he looks more like a burnt pancake than the man who called him a potato like it was the nicest thing ever this morning. 

But he’s breathing on his own and that’s more than what they usually get so he’ll be okay. He has to be.

 

“Harley?”

Peter fell asleep waiting, he usually does. The stress eats his nervous system up and he crashes. 

Harley can never sleep. It’s a weeknight so usually, he’d be with Tony in the basement, working until he crashes. The garage doesn't feel right, though, without Tony there too. So he remains where he feels dutifully bound. 

The other Avengers left, Cap ordering them out and Nat sweeping up the stragglers. Which means that they think that Harley should be here too and that doesn't really help Harley’s anxiety.

“Jesus!” Harley jumps, not expecting Tony to be looking back him. He’d heard someone faintly call his name but he was certain that it was Peter mumbling in his sleep. For some reason, Peter had a lot of food-related dreams and in those dreams, Harley does a lot of foodnapping. 

Instead, he finds Tony.

A fever-ridden Tony. Harley can see more than just a fever coming into play as Tony’s chest start to rise and fall harder panic set in.. “Is the suit charging, Harley? You said…” Tony writhes in the bed. “You said it wasn’t… starting?”

The writhing is aggravating Tony’s injuries, no doubt moving his broken ribs in ways that are making them very unhappy. “Yeah, don’t sweat it. The suit is doing great.” Harley searches for the knobby thing the nurse said was a morphine pump. It was right here, he’d just seen it.

“If the suit won’t,” it’s as if Tony hadn’t heard him at all,” Pepper’s not safe, Harley. I can’t save her if the suit won’t-”

Harley finds it and gives it two pushes. He watches the clear liquid feed through the clear line to the needle in Tony’s hand. “Tony-”

“The suit!” Tony’s fully panicking and Harley knows it but this sort of thing is usually dealt with by Peter. Peter is the emotional one, he’s the one who hands out hugs and isn’t emotionally stunted.

So Harley does the only thing he can think of, he grabs Tony’s hand and stands up. He’d seen Peter hug Tony enough during these things to know they work, even just a little bit. So Harley tugs his mentor into a hug, as careful as he can be of the IVs, tubes, and bandages. 

“Shh,” Harley orders when Tony gasps out about the suit again. “Shhh,” Tony’s hands have fistfuls of Harley’s shirt. “It’s alright, Tony. The suits coming, I’m right here. It’s me, Harley. I’ve got the suit, Tony. I’ve got it.”

It takes time, long moments of hugging, before Tony’s hands start to go slack and the ragged breathing begins to even out. It must be the morphine or exhaustion or maybe Harley is actually helping but Tony settles back on the bed. His eyes are blinking slow and heavy but he’s awake and he’s not freaking out.

Harley sits back down in his chair beside the bed and something unnatural makes him reach for Tony’s hand. He holds it. He holds it like he’s Peter like he’s not terrified of being left again.

“Harley?” Tony’s falling asleep, his eyes are hardly open when they settle on Harley.

Harley takes a moment but he meets Tony’s eyes. A part of him is terrified that Tony’s going to say something about the hug. “Yeah?”

Tony squeezes his hand, it makes Harley jump. “I’m proud of you. I know you’re not like Peter but that’s good.” Tony lets his head roll to the side, he looks at Peter. ‘You’re both good. Harley?”

“Yeah, Tony?”

Tony moves bonelessly so that he’s looking at Harley again,” are we still connected?”

Harley hesitates not because the answer is anything other than ‘of course, you silly old bastard’ but because he knows this is his fault. He’s so terrified of losing Tony that he never thought about what he had. 

Harley tries to brush it off,” don’t be silly. As long as you’re The Mechanic, we’ll always be connected.”

Tony smiles a high crooked smile. “Connected,” he repeats, smiling more to himself more than Harley. 

Just when Harley thinks Tony’s fallen asleep Tony’s hand moves in his,” you saved my life in Tennesse, Harley. You may not be Spiderman but you’re important to me, kid. We’re connected.”

Harley huffs a small laugh but nods,” right. Get some sleep, old man. You look like shit.”

Tony smiles, his eyes closed. 

Harley knows Tony fallen asleep this time and he settles down in his chair. He’ll watch over Iron Man and Spiderman.

**Author's Note:**

> The bit about EJ is from a deleted Iron Man 3 scene


End file.
